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7th Abrates Conference: Official coverage – Part 3 (final)

Should you have not done so yet, read Part 1 and Part 2 before proceeding.

Sunday

The first presentation I watched on the second day of talks was Patricia Moura Souza’s on the Translation Office 3000, a management software for translators. Patricia acknowledged that, although the TO3000 is not user-friendly, it turns out to be a great management tool for translators after you learn how to use it. It took the speaker three months to fully understand the program and totally depend on it for managing her translation work. So we can consider she is now a strong advocate of the tool – its ambassador, if we may say. According to her, some of its benefits is that the user can create and control budgets, invoices and payments by creating groups for services provided (such as translation, interpreting, editing, etc.). Patricia even reveals its greatest secret, that is not clearly understood from the interface: the vertical menu, on the left, refers to all the clients (general data) and the horizontal menu (in the top) refers to the selected client (data by client). And its three greatest functions are: relationship with the client (contact details, pricing list, payment methods, etc.), workflow control (list of projects, specific information, delivery calendar) and financial control (invoices, payments, balance sheets, reports). Now something I particularly loved was that it has a specific tab for marketing! And you can also add other tabs. Other basic operations: you can use your CAT tool wordcount, you can customize fields, and there are all sorts and colors of filters! You can find Patricia’s PowerPoint presentation here. For more information about her experience with the software, read Como o Translation Office 3000 mudou a minha vida – parte 1 e Como o Translation Office mudou a minha vida – parte 2. You can download a 30-day free trial here. Should you love it and decide to buy the software, use this link.

Patricia Moura Souza

Next, I watched the beginning of Leonardo Milani’s talk on professional attitude, but unfortunately I had to leave early because my own presentation was next. However, I was able to grasp one important point: your productivity in terms of words per hour/day is not the same as quality. It does not indicate if you deliver a quality translation or not. And, for him, it is irritating to ask for productivity.

Leonardo Milani

As I said, up next was my presentation. I talked about how to use Facebook professionally as to positively, and not negatively, influence your professional image. However, I will write a more detailed post specifically about it in the upcoming days. Stay tuned.

Yours truly

After my presentation, I ran to João Roque Dias’, on technical drawings. I must confess I just wanted to take a peek at it, so I did not even sit down. I stood in the back of the room taking pictures and tweeting a bit about his presentation, after all, the subject was not something that interested me, since I am not a technical translator of that area. However, to my great surprise, I had to take a seat, because João is certainly a captivating speaker and managed to catch my attention. The Portuguese speaker used attendees to compare both methods of ortographic projections, European and American, with “people” projections. According to João Roque, the translator should always be attentive, because symbols, displays and controls are not always translated. And picture captions should never be translated if the picture itself is not available for reference. If they are, they must be consulted. For example, a “disk” can mean different things in technical drawings, and the picture will tell which one it refers to specifically. João gave some tips about the translation of different types of documents with images. For example, in patents, bid documents and specifications, the text to be translated is almost 100% related to one or a few images, so we should start by studying the images and check if there are inconsistencies with/from the text. In manuals, instructions and leaflets, on the other hand, the text to be translated is clarified by numerous images, so we should study them as we go along, checking for inconsistencies with/from the text. At the end of his presentation, the charismatic speaker had some exercises about his talk and those who got the answer right earned cool customized freebies. It was certainly a pleasure to meet João Roque Dias in person at the conference.

João Roque Dias with Reginaldo Francisco

Closing ceremony

To sum up the best Abrates Conference so far, we had the surprise visit of Vera Holtz, a Brazilian actress, dear friend of Liane Lazoski, current President of Abrates. Her presence was also a surprise to Liane herself, and was organized by recently-elected President, William Cassemiro, and Vice-President, Renato Beninatto. They sang a song together; it was a quite touchy moment, summing up yet another fantastic conference in great style. You can watch her surprise entry and them singing here.

Vera Holtz and Liane Lazoski

New Abrates Board

Since only one slate signed up for the elections, the “Criando Pontes” (Building Bridges) slate was officially elected on Sunday, after the closing ceremony. So here is the next Abrates Board, to take office in July 5:

Platform:
Besides continuing all innovative actions of the last Boards and expanding the acknowledgement of the association, some of its proposed actions are to: expand the Mentoring Program, hold smaller events in other states of the country, offer courses at affordable prices to members, partner with universities, create departments (such as for Literary Translation and Interpreting), optimize the call service, improve the use of social media, etc. Suggestions from members will be always welcome.

Elected Board

Next conference

Although there is no defined date for the next conference yet, the venue is already set: São Paulo. According to the elected President, they will try to make it happen during the same period, early June. See you next year at #abrates17?